2nd of November 2015

Helping Joe, Episode 37

Introduction:

This week on Helping Joe, Nils and Charlie talk about Joe’s latest speed dating adventure and Charlie hilariously reads Joe’s very bro journal entry from that night. Later they review what Joe wrote about his last relationship and how to apply those lessons to his future mating efforts. They also go over his mindset practice and his list of target companies to work at.

Podcast:

You can click here (right click, then click save as) to download the episode directly.

Sponsors:

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Joe’s Thoughts and Takeaways From This Episode:

Hey this is a running commentary of random thoughts, notes, and takeaways I had during or after this episode. – Joe

@Beginning – Starting with mindset stuff

I read As A Man Thinketh and there was some pretty good stuff here that made a lot of sense and was really well written, motivating, etc.

After reading the section about Visions and Ideals I decided to change my goal to 80,000 a year. If I was a living an ideal life, there’s just a lot more fun stuff I want to be doing and I think if I can get to that mark, 80,000 a year by the time I’m 30, that would awesome.

My favorite sections and bits from the book.

I didn’t explain this that well on the podcast. But my favorite sections were Thoughts And Purpose and Visions and Ideals, also Effect of Thought on Circumstance was pretty good.

“If you get validation from external sources, it’s not only fleeting but you subject yourself to negative stuff. The world and life is happening to you instead of drawing from within [yourself].” – Charlie

@7:00 – Doing the 5 Minute Journal

I did this 4/5 days and I thought that was pretty good but they went into why I didn’t do it every day for 5 minutes.

“There’s something to sit and think about here. There is such disquiet in your head that you resist finding even 5 minutes in your day to do something with your thoughts… That’s what we’re trying to reverse. [Doing this] is not difficult. It’s the mental blocks that stop you.” – Nils

I have a small memo pad where at the end of the day I wrote down all the good stuff that happened that day. Kind of like 5 minute journal. I just really like keeping a record of good stuff that happened and having it all in one easy place.

It started when I made a friend at speed dating and went out with him and his girl friends after. I made a friend on the fly. That was pretty awesome and not something I really do a lot of.

I didn’t talk a lot about speeding dating here because this was the worst event I went to. There was only ½ the people there as last time. The coordinator of the event seemed like she had never done this before. And I didn’t really connect with any of the women there like I had in past events. I still had fun with many of them and it was a great time but I didn’t like anybody there so I just didn’t talk about it here.

@21:00 – Charlie begins reading

Oh man this is bad but probably really funny.

I kinda feel sick that this is gonna be on the podcast and everyone is gonna hear this.

@30:00 – We talk about this and why I wrote this

I have a really bad tendency to put other people’s, even people I have just met or don’t even know, their thoughts and opinions ahead of my own self-worth. I put more importance on their judgment of me than on how I think about myself. This is stupid and sucks and it’s a bad habit that I am working on. This was one of those ways of working on it. Here I was devaluing them to lift myself up which maybe is toxic but I didn’t really care when I was writing this.

“You have to devalue the other person to feel good about yourself because you are seeking validation from external sources. If you are feeling better about yourself internally, the need to devalue [them] dissipates.” – Nils

“That ranting leaves it’s mark. You don’t want to be that guy in the long-term.” – Nils

“That’s the mental model you are developing to feel better about yourself.” – Nils
Yea that’s not good. Really toxic if I do this as a reaction to someone I don’t get along with.

“It took you to the very end of this document to get to that point [talking about a new friendship].” – Nils
I made a new friend on the fly!

“The next time you get this impulse to journal (it’s good to vent) try to spend more time writing about the positives. This is a muscle and you haven’t been to the gym in a long time.” – Charlie

And I don’t know if I was tired today or if reading and talking about this on the podcast took a lot out of me emotionally because for the rest of the podcast I was so low energy and kind of quiet.

Again here, I don’t like to sit with my emotions probably because they are so inwardly negative. I would rather just avoid them. Here I wasn’t mad at them but mad at myself for caring so much about what they thought of me.

@39:00 – What I learned or took away from the relationship that ended

This is what I liked.
– She had a great sense of humor, similar to mine.
She laughed a lot at my most of my jokes and random stuff I said. She got it and made some good jokes of her own. She was very playful and lots of fun. I think this is just a life pattern I have that I like people who laugh at stuff I say. My best friends have been like this too.
-We had great sexual chemistry.
It was shaky in the beginning because of my issues not hers, which you can listen to on Episode 16 and 17. But just kissing, touching, feeling each other out, having sex, was great with her. To be honest, she probably wanted to have sex more than I did but not that much more. She liked when I was aggressive which I also liked a lot.
-She was down to go do things I wanted to do. We had similar interests.
She was up for whatever, out-going, rarely said no and wasn’t a downer or anything. She was almost never in a bad mood. We never got into a fight about anything. The only fight we got into was my fault because she brought over cookies and I hate all fo them. She punched me in the arm as I laughed and ate the last one. It was a play fight.
-We could talk about stuff for a long time.
Never got boring talking to her. She and I were great conversationalist together.

This is what I didn’t like.
-She didn’t workout or take care of her body.
I realize I’m kind of crazy about being in great shape, but I found that that was a big sticking point. I like women who make a solid effort with this stuff, who go to the gym or run or do crossfit or whatever a few times a week. I like fit women. The last girl I dated who ended it with me was an athlete. Her body was fantastic and I liked that a lot.
-A few of her life decisions.
She was unhappy with her awful job and boss (who was also a source of hilarity for both of us so I liked that). She finally quit to go back into debt and back to grad school to pursue her passion career. That bugged me a little because I think school is a rip-off. I didn’t tell her that but in the back of my mind, I’m like that doesn’t sound like a good decision, you didn’t make a good decision with the major you did in undergrad, which most people don’t to be honest, I sure didn’t, but it looks like you’re doing the same thing again and digging yourself into a deeper hole by taking out more loans. I didn’t want to tell her what to do with her life so I just let it be.

And this is what I learned
-How to be more aggressive in bed and that that was fun.
-How to find new date spots and be more assertive “Hey let’s go do X on Yday” not “hey what are you doing?” or “What do you want to do?” … I learned how to always have a fucking plan and a backup plan, improv helped with the backup plan at times.
-Not every girl wants to be in a relationship right away, but you are a relationship type of dude. Most girls, once they go on a few dates with me, want to keep me around because I’m awesome.
-I should go pursue girls that are athletic or fit, and go to mating markets where I will find them.
-I learned how to have a relationship talk or a “where is this going” talk thanks to Tucker
-I made major improvements to my room when she knew me.

I think she liked that:
-I was honest and a real dude. In her phone, my name was Genuine Joe
-I was smart, cute, whatever.
-I was funny and playful
-I made major improvements to my room when she knew me.
-I was fit, had a 6 pack, and a V (I still have no idea why women like the V thing)
-I listened to her and remembered her stories and family stuff and all that and could call it back.
-I took her on fun dates. We were always doing fun stuff.
-I wasn’t timid in bed.

@42:00 – Nils talks about my paternalistic chauvinism here

I was judging this girl’s life choices like I knew better than she did about her own life and what she should do with it. That doesn’t make sense.

“Why can’t you just be happy for her that she’s doing something that she’s passionate about? … You’re never gonna find somebody who is [or wants] the mirror image of what you do.” – Nils

I don’t know why I felt like I had to judge her and think there was a right or wrong answer.

@47:30 – I am a relationship type of guy but am resistant to long-term relationships

The girls who are into me, want to date me long-term. And I like dating but I don’t want to date one person seriously.

Nils asks if I’m aiming too low, taking what I can get instead of pursuing what I want, and the more I think about it, he’s right. For the last few months I really have just been taking what came to me on Tinder, and that was great and lot of fun, but I should probably be focusing more on going after what I want and going to the places where those women are instead of just swiping right and hoping for the best.

“Guys who are prone to one night stands have a specific set of character traits around outward flashy material good looks, a lot of charisma, and signals that appeal to women who are looking to Mr. Right Now. You don’t have those. You have the longer term traits that women like.” – Nils

@52:00 – Applying what you learned here to the rest of your life.

“Things happen to Joe and then they disappear into the monkey fight. Half of his entire work history disappeared from his consciousness. This is knowledge that needs to be recorded and applied for it to stick… now it’s time to put all this into action.” – Nils

@53:00 – Genuine Joe

To be honest I think one of the reasons I am genuine or come off that way to her and others is because of doing this podcast and having to be really honest here every week. This makes it easier to be honest in other areas of my life with other people.

@56:00 – Replacing under the breath profanity with pseudo swear words

“You need to stop taking your life so damn seriously.” – Charlie

We also talk about Nils’s past Halloween costumes. This story was pretty hilarious.

“People want proven talent, and we can all agree that you have that… 50% of the time they will find a way to make room for you.” – Nils

@1:04:00 – You’re still that dude

I had reservations or a lack of confidence about being that guy again and being able to pull this off again and do that work and be really good at it. I just don’t think I’m that guy any more. Those experiences were a long time ago (2013) and it was really easy to sell that idea because I loved it and bought in + it was low risk for our partners. I don’t know.

“You sound like an athlete who hasn’t played for 10 years. It’s sales! You’re still that guy.” – Charlie